


His Journal, Our Journey

by BlueShoo



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueShoo/pseuds/BlueShoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reliving old memories can be nostalgic, but living them through the death of another is nothing but pain.<br/>Jean reads Marco's journal and remembers all the times they spent together, as well as learns of the things he did while they were apart. Everything from their first day together, until their last, and all Jean has left are his memories and Marco's words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Journal, Our Journey

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, I just wanted to warn y'all that this is literally the first Fanfiction I have ever written so I apologise for possible awfulness in advance. Aside from that, the parts of the story in italics are what Marco wrote in his journal, while everything else between the ~ things are Jean's memories... Everything outside those are Jean after Marco's death... yeah.. Enjoy! Hopefully....

I recognised the curvy but slightly messy writing on the cover. How could I not know the style I had been reading for months, years even? It was the handwriting of the only person I had ever loved.

I tried to stop my hand from shaking as I took the journal from Mrs Bodt, who let out a whimper when the leather bound book lost contact with her tan skin.

“I’m so sorry Jean.” She whispered through a chocked sob, as if it were my child that had been lost and not her own. I clenched my teeth to hold back tears and tried to repeat the words back to her, but when I couldn’t say anything Mr Bodt clapped me on the shoulder and smiled weakly.

“He loved you, you know that right?” The tall, dark haired man added. God he looked so much like Marco, and I couldn’t bring myself to stare into those all-to-familiar brown eyes as I nodded in response.

Of course I knew Marco had loved me, I had heard him say it so many times before, but hearing the words now just made my heart ache. It was like a grim reminder that never again would those words be spoken to me from my boyfriend’s perfect lips.

For a long while we all just stood in silence. I could feel Mr and Mrs Bodt’s eyes on me, watching carefully as I stared down at the journal in my hands, barely containing my grief and anger and fear. I wanted to die. There was nothing left for me without Marco.

“We should get going. We still have many more people to inform of Marco’s… situation. We just wanted you to know first.” Mr Bodt spoke up, his voice hoarse. I didn’t fail to notice how he avoided the word ‘death’, like that would make it hurt less than admitting his only son was gone from the world.

I couldn’t bring myself to move as they both wrapped their arms around me, Mrs Bodt sobbing uncontrollably as she said goodbye, Mr Bodt not saying anything, just patting me on the back sympathetically.

“Marco never liked goodbyes.” I found myself choking out as the door shut behind them. “It’s not goodbye, it’s see you later.” But Marco was wrong. He wouldn’t let me say goodbye when he left here three months ago, and now I would never get the chance.

* * *

 

_~ January 26th 2009_

_Mum wants me to keep a journal for my final year of high school, so I can look back on it and remember the last year of my secondary school life. I will write important events in my life in here._

_Today was my first day of senior year at Jinae High. It was the same as any new school year, relatively boring, but it was great to see my old friends and even meet some new ones. One of my new friends is a guy by the name of Jean Kirschtein who just moved here last month. He seemed a little hostile at first, but it turns out he is actually a really nice guy! He’s a bit rough around the edges, but I’m sure we are going to be great friends._

* * *

I was always late to school, for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t that I hated getting up early or anything like that, because I usually got up at five anyway, but my parents had never really been around to make sure I got there on time, so I took that as an opportunity to avoid going to class for as long as possible. I never liked school anyway.

But for my first day of senior year I decided to be on time, since I was starting at a new school after all.

“Jinae High has excellent ratings! Almost all the students that graduate from Jinae get into exceptional universities and rank top of all their classes!”

Or so my mother had said one day in late December.

When I arrived at what would now be my school for the next eleven months I found it already packed with students from all walks of life.

“Twelve-A in the front, everyone else in alphabetical order behind them!” A drill sergeant-like bald man shouted as I entered the hall, causing all the students to hurry off to their seats. I found myself standing in the middle of the doorway not knowing where to go when suddenly a voiced called from behind me.

“Hey there kid! Are you new? Lost? What class?”

I turned to find a brown haired woman in a stained lab coat standing behind me, her large eyes almost popping out against her rectangular glasses.

“Yeah both, uh new and lost I mean. Could you tell me where 12-H is supposed to be?”

The lady, whose name tag identified her as ‘Hanji Zoe’, smiled brightly and ushered me towards a row of seats near the middle of the room.

“Great! 12-H is the class I am in charge of! Nice to meet you, I’m Hanji… Well, Ms Hanji but I dislike titles. Besides, I am here to learn, just like you guys so Hanji is fine.”

When Hanji left me standing by a row of almost full seats I sat down in the closest one, right next to a little blond kid who did not look old enough to be in his last year of high school and appeared to be in the middle of some kind of panic attack.

“Armin, hey, calm down! Its ok I promise I won’t tell anyone alright? You don’t need to worry about it.” A freckled guy with brown hair and big, brown eyes said reassuringly, glancing around the room as he spoke in hushed tones.

The blond guy, Armin, seemed to relax, but only a little. “Thanks Marco. I just didn’t know who I could talk to about this, but you are really the only one I could trust.” Marco wrapped his arm around his friend’s shoulders comfortingly before locking his eyes to mine, though I hadn’t even noticed I had been staring.

“Hello.” He said with a bright, toothy smile and I jumped in surprise. “I haven’t seen you around here before. Are you new?”

I frowned on instinct. I was never one to enjoy others company, always more of a lone wolf kind of guy, but something about the excitement and kindness in the freckled kids eyes made me speak.

“Yeah, I just moved to Jinae this year.” I said, sounding rather blunt. I didn’t mean to, I’m just naturally like that. Turning my eyes back to the front I found them staring into the pits of hell. Well, staring directly into the eyes of Mr Drill Sergeant from before at least.

“Name?!” He shouted, walking up to my chair. I craned my neck to look up at him, but sat tall and made sure to sound confident and not at all intimidated as I answered.

“Jean Kirschtein, sir.”  

“Well Kirschtein, I suggest you don’t piss me off this year and we will get along just peachy!” And with that he left to go scare some more seniors.

“What the fuck did I do?” I whispered angrily to myself, earning a laugh from Marco.

“Don’t mind him. That’s Mr Shadis, he hates everyone. My name is Marco Bodt by the way.” The boy held out his hand and I took it, mumbling my own name in return. Just as Marco was about to say something else a teacher from the front called for silence and I was saved from having to engage in small talk, because small talk is just something I have never been able to do.

* * *

 

“Jean!”

I ignored the voice calling out my name, instead extracting my cell from my back pocket and scrolling through my messages, hoping whoever was calling me would think I was busy and leave me be.

Unfortunately, no such luck.

A firm, tan hand on my elbow announced the presence of Marco Bodt, who, coincidently, happened to be in every single one of my classes so far and seemed to think it his duty to take care of me.

“Jean! I was calling you, did you not hear me?” He asked sincerely. I looked down at my phone, feeling slightly ashamed of myself but he just shrugged it off with an “Oh, you were on the phone. I apologise.”

When we made it out of the crowded school and out to the courtyard where everyone was eating lunch Marco finally remembered what he had been calling out to me for.

“Oh, that’s right! Would you like to eat lunch with us?” _No,_ I thought, but I wasn’t actually giving the opportunity to answer when Marco grabbed my arm again and dragged me off to a table near the back of the school.

“Guys, this is Jean. This is his first day so is it ok if he sits with us?”

From around the table eight pairs of eyes landed on me, some cold, some kind, some disinterested and one set barely even leaving their lunch long enough to fully take in my unexpected company. When no one objected Marco hastily pushed me down in a seat next to a tall guy with dark hair who began to sweat profusely the second our shoulders bumped.

“That’s Bertholdt,” Marco said, pointing to the guy next to me and then the two blond girls next to him, “Annie and Krista. On the other side we have Sasha, Connie, Armin, Eren and Mikasa.”

Armin I recognised as the blond kid from assembly and Eren, who’s green eyes were staring daggers up at me between his brown bangs, and Connie, the bald kid with a pretzel stick balancing on his top lip, were both in my math class, but everyone else’s faces were completely new to me.

Hands were shaken, stories were exchanged, people moved on with their lives.

Marco, Annie and Bertholdt (who everyone called ‘Bertl’), I learnt, were all a year older than myself. Marco and Bertholdt had taken a year off in primary school to visit relatives overseas and Annie was kept down for skipping too any classes three years ago.

“Oh, that’s right!” Krista suddenly exclaimed, popping her head out from behind Annie to look down the table at Sasha and Connie. “Ymir wanted me to ask if Springles was a thing yet or if she needed to have a little chat with a certain someone?” The last part was directed at Connie who frowned.

Sasha, on the other hand, choked on her lunch.

“What the hell Krista?! I already told you that we are just friends. Best friends, nothing more, nothing less, right Sasha?” Connie defended himself, shooting the messenger in the process. Sasha nodded in agreement, but even as a newcomer I could tell she was lying by the way she avoided looking at anyone and stopped shovelling food into her mouth, looking slightly hurt.

Oh unrequited love, how very often your sting is present in the world of high school students.

The rest of lunch was relatively quiet, with the exception of Marco, who kept trying to resolve the obvious tension at the table. By the time the final bell rang to signal the end of school I was grateful to finally be out of that place.

Slipping my backpack over my shoulder I headed for the street directly across from Jinae High, not bothering to spare anyone a second glance as they all boarded onto buses and into cars to head home for the day; all except Marco.

“Oh, Jean, do you live down this way as well?” He asked cheerily, catching up to me as I stepped off the pavement to cross the road. I nodded curtly and continued on, closely followed by my new shadow. “Well I live in that house right there.”

I followed the direction of Marco’s finger to find it pointing at the house across and three houses down from my own. It was a large, yellow, 2 story house with a red roof and a white front door. The five windows I could see from where we stood were covered from the inside by lace curtains and it was easy to tell that Mrs Bodt took very good care of her garden, even before I spotted her watering a bed of multi-coloured flowers.

My own house stood silently a little further down the road. No one would be home for hours, meaning the maroon curtains were still drawn and the green door still locked. I contemplated heading for the park instead of going home, but it’s not like I would have anything to do at the park anyway.

_This is why I didn’t want to move,_ I thought bitterly to myself, remembering my friend Thomas from my previous high school in Trost. Usually I would spend hours at his house, playing video games, watching movies, browsing on his laptop, but now I had no one I could hang with until my parents got home. 

As we neared Marco’s front yard his mum stopped watering her flowers to stare in our direction, her face splitting into a huge smile when Marco waved happily to her.

“Marco, welcome home!”

“Hey mum.”

“Oh my, who is your friend? He is very handsome!” The lady, who I had rightfully assumed was Marco’s mother, asked, putting down her watering can and heading towards her son. I tried to keep walking as she approached, but Marco pulled me to a stop and dragged me to meet his mother.

“This is Jean!” He proudly introduced. Mrs Bodt was as overly friendly as her son, if not more so, wrapping her arms around me and kissing my cheek as she introduced herself to me as ‘Louise Bodt’.

“Jean, that’s a lovely name. Is it French?” Mrs Bodt asked, her hand lingering on my wrist. I nodded. “Oh that’s beautiful! Is your family from France? My entire family is from Belgium so we can all speak French, except Marco.” She smacked her son’s shoulder playfully and he groaned in embarrassment.

“Mum, don’t annoy Jean! He probably wants to get home, right?”

“Nonsense Marco. He must live in the Kirschtein house up the street. I met his parents when they moved in and his mother told me they would be grateful if I could look out for their son since they are so busy with work and he will be home alone. Would you like to come in for some cake?” She added to me, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the front door to her house.

At least I knew where Marco got his overly friendly but slightly pushy nature from.

Sitting down at the table Marco pulled open his backpack and tossed all his books onto the wooden surface in front of him. Flipping through the pages of one of his textbooks he stopped with a sigh, closed the book and shoved everything back in his bag.

“I guess I’m not getting a car.” He said dully. Mrs Bodt chuckled from inside the fridge before emerging with a white paper box. When I looked at Marco in confusion he decided to explain his seemingly random statement.

“My older sister Sophie told me that she wrote a message on page one-oh-four of the senior geography textbooks a few years ago and if I could find it she would buy me a car this year for my eighteenth, but I didn’t get it so I’m not getting a car.”

“Oh.” I said. Mrs Bodt handed me a slice of cheesecake and a spoon and we all began to dig in.

“Why don’t you go show Jean around?” She asked Marco when we had all finished eating. In reality, I think she really just liked saying my name, and to be honest I really liked hearing her say it. She was so sweet and caring and every time she said my name it was with the kindest voice anyone could ever imagine. Mrs Bodt was easily one of the most beautiful people I had ever met, both inside and out.

“Sure! Oh, wait,” Marco turned to his mother with puppy dog eyes, “I know I haven’t done my homework yet but can we please play the PlayStation for a couple hours?” Mrs Bodt rolled her eyes with a smile and nodded before pushing her son out into the hallway where I followed him up the stairs.

“Do you like playing games?” Marco asked as we headed for the door just past the bathroom up the white railed staircase. I nodded and slipped inside what I assumed was Marco’s bedroom.

Marco’s room, surprisingly, was quite messy. Clothes were spread across every surface, books in giant piles on the floor, what looked like sheet music lined one wall, pinned in place with tacks and scribbled across here and there while posters of people I had never heard of lined another.  

When I smothered a laugh Marco turned to me in surprise.

“I’m sorry it’s such a mess. I have been meaning to clean it, just… life got in the way, you know?”

Actually no, I didn’t know. I had always had so much spare time that I never knew what to do with myself. My room was always clean, in fact our entire house was always clean because when there was nothing else to do I would clean, clean and clean some more. Of course this impressed my dad’s boss Levi who is a clean freak.

And it meant I had lots of time to study, much to my disappointment, which made my parents happy since my grades were always stupendous.

“No, I was just thinking that you seemed more like the cleanly type but…” I made a sweeping gesture around the room. Marco shrugged with a crooked smile and headed for the TV.

“How good are you at Burnout?”

Burnout, it turns out, is a car racing game that I had never played before in my life. So, naturally, Marco kicked my ass for many rounds until I finally caught the hang of the game. We played for so long that we didn’t even realise when the sun went down. And so, five hours later when Mrs Bodt came up to check on us…

“What?! No! I demand a rematch!” Marco wailed over my hysteric laughter.

“You said first to fifteen! It’s not my fault you suck.”

“But I only lost by one game! That’s like… That’s just torture! I was so close.” He groaned, laying his head back against his bed. 

We were only quiet for a few seconds before Mrs Bodt tapped lightly on the door and entered, reminding us that it was dark and my parents would probably be home and wondering where I was.

I collected my various things from around Marco’s bedroom (my backpack by the door, my shoes and socks randomly thrown around the already messy floor, my wallet hidden under one of Marco’s school shirts because it was digging into my butt while I sat on the floor and played for five hours) and headed for the stairs.

“Thanks for inviting me over Marco. You too Mrs Bodt, thanks for the cake.” I said as politely as I could, probably still sounding a little ruder than necessary, but neither seemed to mind as they walked with me to the front door.

“Want me to walk you home?” Marco offered when we reached the porch. I raised an eyebrow and he quickly corrected, “Because it’s dark, and I like talking to you, and I want to see where you live.”

“Wow Marco, that wasn’t creepy at all.” I said, nudging his shoulder with my own. “How about I walk myself home like the big boy I am and you can come visit my house tomorrow after school, alright?” I was only being slightly patronising, but Marco didn’t care at all.

“Alright!” He giggled excitedly. I rolled my eyes but the smile on my face was so obvious that I didn’t even try to hide it.

“Alright. Good bye then.”

“Jean,” He said softly and I found myself wishing he would say my name like that again, “it’s not goodbye, it’s see you later.”

“See you later Marco.”

“See you later Jean. Tomorrow, don’t forget!”

I laughed but didn’t respond. There was no way he would let me forget my promise.

It wasn’t until much later, while I was lying in bed staring at the ceiling that I realised something; although I had only known Marco for a day, it already felt like I had known him for a lifetime.

* * *

 

_He promised I could visit his house tomorrow after school and I definitely won’t let him forget! It’s funny though, although I have only known Jean for a little while, I can’t help but feel like we have known each other forever.~_

* * *

I stared down at the first page of Marco’s journal; the events depicted fresh in my mind as if they had only happened yesterday.

Across the bottom of the page Marco had scrawled a little note, probably from years after our initial meeting, when we were already together.

_I wrote this so I would remember, but there is no way I could forget. The day I met you Jean, and my life really began._

I closed the book and climbed into bed, both the journal and my face already soaked with tears I could no longer hold in. Men didn’t cry, I told myself, but masculinity didn’t matter right now. Without Marco nothing mattered anymore. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading my very first chapter of my very first fanfic ever! I hope you liked it.. Or at least found it dully entertaining because I did try my best! (though it is only ever in the late hours of the night/ early hours of the morning that I write so I'm a little tired). If anyone wishes to leave a comment to tell me what they thought, or what I need to fix/be wary of in future chapters, feel free to do so because it would be very appreciated! Thank you again! <3


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